Timelines

Interactive chronologies of news, sports and historical events. Choose a timeline to explore the topic:

June 15, 2015

Rachel Dolezal was elected president of the Spokane NAACP in November 2014. On June 15, she announced her resignation, following allegations that she had been posing as a black woman while her Montana family says she's white.

February 5, 2015

World War II veteran Delbert “Shorty” Belton was beaten and left for dead Aug. 21 in his car at the Eagles Lodge parking lot in North Spokane. Belton, 88, died the following day at Sacred Heart Medical Center.
Two 16-year-old boys, Demetruis Glenn and Kenan Adams-Kinard, were arrested separately in connection with the fatal beating, which Spokane police described as a robbery-turned-homicide. The case drew national attention.

January 21, 2015

Doris Nelson's payday loan business moved to Spokane in 2001. Eight years later, it was in financial ruin and investors worldwide had lost millions of dollars. As a court-appointed trustee looks to conclude years of legal wrangling over who should pay back whom, take a look back at the events that led to criminal charges, bankruptcies and clawbacks.

December 18, 2014

The push for a federal review of the Spokane Police Department's practices reached a fever pitch in the wake of Otto Zehm's death at the hands of former Ofc. Karl Thompson, Jr., in March 2006. Friday's announcement of the findings of a Department of Justice-led report on the department is the culmination of those efforts. Here are some key events that led to Friday's proceedings.

July 25, 2014

The Great Fire of 1889 burned 32 city blocks in Spokane, causing an estimated $10 million in damage. Despite the devastation, the fire launched an economic boom that saw the construction of 150 buildings within the next year.

July 30, 2013

March 12, 2013

This year will be the 16th straight year the Gonzaga Bulldogs have been to the NCAA basketball tournament, in a streak that began in 1999. The team had been to the tournament before, in 1995, when they knocked off Portland to win the West Coast Conference championship, then lost in the first round. Their run since then has included five visits to the Sweet 16 and one to the Elite Eight.

December 5, 2012

Nearly a year after a 10-year prison sentence ended for 57-year-old Mitchell Lee Walck, after he assaulted a corrections officer in a Montana jail, Walck fled from Kootenai County Sheriff’s deputies during a traffic stop near Athol, Idaho, beginning a half hour pursuit that led to the kidnapping of a Rathdrum woman.

September 12, 2012

Spokane developer and hotelier Walt Worthy has been making deals on downtown Spokane real estate for years, most notably his purchase and renovation of the historic Davenport Hotel. On Wednesday, Worthy announced he would build a 700-room hotel across from the Spokane Convention Center which would provide up to 70,000 square feet of additional meeting space. Here are some milestones in Worthy's impact on downtown Spokane in recent years.

August 3, 2012

Twenty years ago, a white separatist wanted by federal agents retreated with his family to a remote mountain-top in Idaho. Three people died in the standoff that followed, and the event became a defining moment in the rise of the radical right.